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  "Unusual combination," Wedge murmured under his breath.

  One of Ackbar's eyes swiveled briefly toward him before turning back to Bel Iblis. "The final line of the situation is that any serious New Republic presence over Bothawui at this point would be construed as support of the Bothans against their critics."

  "It would be nothing of the sort," Bel Iblis objected. "It would be a voice of calm and reason in the middle of a very dangerous flash point. There are sixty-eight warships here already, all of them engaged in a twelve-way glaring contest with each other, all of them ready to jump if any of the others so much as sneeze. There has got to be someone here who can mediate any problems before they collapse into all-out war."

  Ackbar sighed, a darkly rasping sound. "I agree with you wholeheartedly, General. But the High Council and Senate are in ultimate authority here, and they have come to a different conclusion." Bel Iblis threw a baleful glance at Wedge. "I trust you'll continue trying to change their minds."

  "Yes indeed," Ackbar said. "But whether I am successful or not, you will not be the one chosen for the dubious honor of mediator. President Gavrisom has already selected another task for you."

  "More important than keeping the peace over Bothawui?"

  "Far more important," Ackbar assured him. "If Bothawui is the flash point, then it is the Caamas Document which is the spark."

  Wedge felt a sudden premonition hit him. Could Gavrisom actually be considering—?

  He was. "President Gavrisom has therefore concluded that the New Republic's best chance of defusing the controversy is to obtain an intact copy of the document," Ackbar continued. "To that end, you are to proceed immediately to Ord Trasi, where you will begin assembling a force for an information raid on the Imperial Ubiqtorate base at Yaga Minor."

  Wedge stole a furtive glance at Bel Iblis. The general's expression hadn't changed, but there was just enough of a tightness in his jaw to show he was thinking along the same lines Wedge was. "With all due respect, Admiral," Bel Iblis said, "President Gavrisom must be joking. Yaga Minor is possibly the most heavily defended system in Imperial or New Republic space. And that's just considering a straight-line attack, where it doesn't matter which enemy positions come under fire. Having to keep the enemy data system intact adds five extra layers of difficulty to the whole operation."

  "The President is well aware of the challenges involved," Ackbar said, his voice even more gravelly than usual. "I'll be honest: I don't like this any more than you do. But it has to be tried. If war breaks out over this issue, we don't have enough ships or troops to either force or maintain a peace. The entire New Republic could conceivably collapse into total civil war." Bel Iblis looked at Wedge again, turned back to the display. "Yes, sir," he said. "Unfortunately, I'm forced to agree with your assessment."

  "I may also say," Ackbar added, "that if there's any way this can be done, you are the one who can do it."

  Bel Iblis smiled wryly. "Thank you for your confidence, Admiral. I'll do my best."

  "Good," Ackbar said. "You and your task force are to leave Bothawui immediately for Ord Trasi. I'll be quietly sending you the rest of your ships over the next two weeks, at which time I expect you to have a battle plan formulated and ready to go."

  "Understood," Bel Iblis said. "What about special equipment or units?"

  "Anything the New Republic can supply is yours," Ackbar assured him. "Tell me what you need, and I'll have it sent to you."

  Bel Iblis nodded. "We will of course need total secrecy on this," he warned. "If even a hint leaks to the Empire, what little chance we have will be gone."

  "The secrecy will be complete," Ackbar promised. "I've already set a cover story in motion which should convince any Imperial spies that the ships are secretly being assembled in the outer regions of the Kothlis system for the defense of Bothawui, should that become necessary."

  "That should work," Bel Iblis said. "Provided they don't head to Kothlis and take a look for themselves."

  "Two Rendili Space Docks have already been moved to the Kothlis system," Ackbar said.

  "They'll be equipped with dummy ships carrying the proper IDs and markings for the benefit of any Imperials who happen by."

  "Interesting." Bel Iblis cocked an eyebrow. "So this isn't just some slice-of-the-moment idea Gavrisom came up with last night. This has been in the works for some time now." The Mon Cal nodded his massive head. "The preparations were begun the day after the riot at the Combined Clans Building on Bothawui," he said. "With General Solo's implication in that incident, the President knew it would no longer be possible for the New Republic government to make any overt political moves without our motives coming under fire."

  "I understand the reasoning involved," Bel Iblis said heavily. "Ord Trasi it is, then."

  "A liaison team from my office will be waiting there when you arrive," Ackbar said. "Good luck, General."

  "Thank you, Admiral. Bel Iblis out."

  The general touched a key, and the transmission ended. "Which doesn't mean I entirely agree with it," he commented under his breath to the blank display as he turned to Wedge. "Well, General. Comments?"

  Wedge shook his head. "I was on an information raid once, back when we were trying to get data on Grand Admiral Makati out of the Boudolayz library," he said. "I think the bit-pushers estimated afterward that we were about eighty percent successful. And that was Boudolayz, not Yaga Minor."

  "Yes, I've read the reports on that raid," Bel Iblis said, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. "This is definitely not going to be easy."

  Wedge grimaced. "Meanwhile, Bothawui keeps collecting warships like a floodlight collects night insects. Eventually, sir, someone's going to try to take advantage of that."

  "I agree," Bel Iblis said. "Which is why I asked you to come up here with me this afternoon."

  "Oh?" Wedge said, regarding him closely. "Then you knew this was coming?"

  "Not the Yaga Minor raid specifically," Bel Iblis said. "But I had a feeling Coruscant would turn down my request to stay here and keep order. It also occurred to me that if my task force was ordered away—as we now indeed have been—that Rogue Squadron isn't technically part of that task force."

  Wedge frowned. "You've lost me, General. I thought we'd been permanently attached to you."

  "To me, yes," Bel Iblis agreed. "But not to my task force. It's a fine but very important technical distinction."

  "I'll take your word for it," Wedge said, trying without success to sift confirmation of that point from his own memory of the New Republic's military regs. "So what does that mean?" Bel Iblis swiveled the encrypt station chair around and sat down. "It means I agree with you that someone is likely to take advantage of this mess," he said, folding his hands in his lap. "Possibly this shadowy Vengeance organization that keeps throwing riots and demanding the Bothans pay through the snout for their part in the destruction of Caamas."

  "Yes," Wedge said slowly as a sudden thought hit him. "And since the Bothan contribution to that attack was to sabotage the Caamas planetary shields...?"

  Bel Iblis nodded. "Very good. Yes, my guess is someone's going to try to take out Bothawui's shields."

  Wedge whistled softly. "Do you think that's even possible? The Bothans are supposed to have one of the best shield systems in the galaxy."

  "They did once, back at the height of the Empire," Bel Iblis said. "Whether they've kept it up I don't know. But of course an enemy wouldn't have to take down the entire grid to do serious damage. Dropping the shield just over Drev'starn would open up a hole you could pour a lot of turbolaser damage through."

  "Yes," Wedge murmured. "Trouble is, it wouldn't be just the Bothans who'd get hammered."

  "That is indeed the problem," Bel Iblis agreed soberly. "At last count, there were over three hundred megacorporations with their headquarters on Bothawui, plus thousands of smaller companies and at least fifty pledge and commodity exchanges."

  Wedge nodded. It wouldn't exactly mean universal economic chao
s if they were hit, but it would add a considerable degree of extra anger and resentment to the stew already heating up out there. And with all those warships trying to stare each other down overhead, it might do considerably more than just heat the stew. "What do you want me to do?"

  Bel Iblis seemed to be studying his face. "I want you to go down to the surface and make sure that doesn't happen."

  Wedge had had a sneaking suspicion that was the direction this conversation was going. It came as something of a shock just the same. "All by myself?" he asked. "Or do you think I might need the rest of Rogue Squadron, too?"

  Bel Iblis smiled. "Relax, Wedge, it's not as bad as it sounds," he said. "I'm not expecting you to stand in front of the Drev'starn generator dome, a blaster in each hand, and hold off the Third Imperial Heavy Armor. So far Vengeance has shown more trickery and subterfuge than brute force; and trickery and subterfuge are things a couple of clever X-wing pilots ought to have a good chance of spotting."

  So the proposed scout party was up to two now, Wedge noted, thereby doubling their chances of rooting out this theoretical splinter in a sand hill. "Did you have anyone in particular in mind as the second clever X-wing pilot?"

  "Of course," Bel Iblis said. "Commander Horn."

  "I see," Wedge said between suddenly stiff lips. A search for a hidden saboteur... and Bel Iblis had immediately come up with Corran Horn. Could he somehow have deduced Corran's carefully hidden Jedi skills? "Why him?"

  Bel Iblis's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Because his father-in-law is a smuggler," he said. "He's bound to have a network of contacts Horn will be able to access."

  "Ah," Wedge said, relaxing a bit. "I hadn't thought about that."

  "That's why I'm a senior general," Bel Iblis said dryly. "You'd better get below and give Horn the good news. You heard Ackbar—I only have a couple of weeks to pull all this together, and I'll want you back with the squadron when we hit Yaga Minor."

  "We'll do what we can," Wedge promised. "You want us to take one of the Peregrine's unmarked shuttles?"

  Bel Iblis nodded. "X-wings would be a little conspicuous. Leave your uniforms, too, but take your military IDs in case you have to pull rank on some bureaucrat. I'll let you know when I want you at Ord Trasi."

  "Understood," Wedge said.

  "Good," Bel Iblis said. "I'm going to stay up here for a few minutes—I can transmit to the other commanders from here as well as I can from the bridge or my office. Ackbar said immediately, though, so as soon as the other ships are ready, we go. You'll need to be off the Peregrine before that."

  "We will, sir," Wedge said, moving toward the door. "Good luck with your battle plan, General." Bel Iblis smiled faintly. "Good luck with yours."

  * * *

  They were just hitting Bothawui's atmosphere when Corran, who'd been leaning against the side viewport looking back toward the shuttle's stern, turned around and settled himself back into his seat.

  "They're gone," he announced.

  Wedge glanced at his displays. The ships of the Peregrine task force were indeed no longer registering. "That they are," he agreed. "We're on our own now." Corran shook his head. "This is crazy, Wedge. And you say he specifically told you to take me?"

  "Yes, but it didn't have anything to do with your hidden talents," Wedge assured him. "He thinks you'll be able to access Booster's smuggling network."

  Corran snorted. "That might work, if Booster was speaking to me these days." Wedge glanced sideways at him. "What, he's not still mad about that trick we pulled with the Hoopster's Prank off Sif'kric, is he? I thought we decided they weren't carrying any contraband and let them go."

  "No, they weren't; and yes, he is," Corran said. "Clean or not, the Sif'kries decided they didn't want smugglers carrying cargoes for them and banned the Hoopster's Prank forthwith from future pommwomm shipments."

  Wedge winced. "Ouch."

  "Doesn't mean they won't get in anyway," Corran continued with a shrug. "It just means they'll have to come up with different ships or new ID camouflage or something. But it's a nuisance, and Booster hates nuisances. Especially official nuisances."

  "Mm," Wedge said. "Sorry about that. Maybe Mirax will be able to calm him down."

  "Oh, I'm sure she will," Corran said. "Come to think of it, though, I'm not sure Booster even has any interests on Bothawui. The planet's got so many other smuggling groups crawling all over it that he may have decided to leave it alone."

  "Oh, that's handy," Wedge grumbled.

  "Hey, you're the one who wanted to get back to the exciting life of an X-wing pilot, remember," Corran reminded him. "You could have been safely flying a computer somewhere on Coruscant if you'd wanted."

  Wedge made a face. "No, thanks. Tried it, didn't like it. So you're not expecting us to find any help down there at all?"

  There was a brief silence. "That's an interesting question," Corran murmured at last, his voice sounding odd. "Actually... I think I am."

  Wedge threw him a frown. "You are what? Expecting to find help?"

  "I think so, yes," Corran said, that same strange tone in his voice. "Don't ask how or where. I just... I think so."

  "Let me guess," Wedge said. "Jedi hunch?"

  Corran nodded. "Jedi hunch."

  Wedge smiled. "Good," he said, already feeling better about this whole mission. "In that case, we don't have anything to worry about."

  "Well, no," Corran said slowly. "I don't think I'd go so far as to say that."

  CHAPTER

  4

  [Beware to the starboard,] the Togorian female at the Wild Karrde's sensor station called, her normally fluid mewling speech now clipped and harsh. [At the two-five by fourteen angle.]

  "I'm on it," another tight voice came over the bridge comm unit. The edges of a hundred asteroids rolling sedately past the viewport flickered with reflected light as one of the Wild Karrde's turbolasers flashed, then blazed even more brightly as the target asteroid shattered into dust and fire. Seated in the back of the bridge out of the way, Shada D'ukal mentally shook her head. Negotiating an asteroid field was never an easy task, but it seemed to her the Togorian and at least one of the turbolaser gunners were getting themselves far too worked up over the whole operation. Either they were naturally excitable, or else young and inexperienced. Neither possibility exactly filled her with confidence; both made her wonder about their captain's wisdom in bringing the two of them along in the first place.

  Perhaps the captain was feeling the same way. "Calm down, H'sishi," Talon Karrde cautioned the Togorian from his seat behind the helm and copilot stations. "You, too, Chal. Just because this asteroid field is larger than others you've encountered doesn't mean it has to be treated any differently. A light touch, blast only the rocks that are of immediate danger to us, and let Dankin maneuver the ship around the others."

  The Togorian's ears twitched. [I obey, Chieftain,] she said.

  "Yes, sir," the gunner's voice added.

  Not that the admonition made any appreciable difference, at least not that Shada could see. H'sishi still continued to snap out her targeting locks, and Chal still fired full-power turbolaser blasts whether the target warranted that much of a kick or not.

  But then, maybe it wasn't just them. Maybe they were merely sensing and reacting to the nervousness Karrde himself was feeling.

  Shada shifted her gaze to focus on his profile. He was hiding it well, actually, with only cheek and jaw muscles betraying the tension there. But Mistryl training included the reading of faces and body language, and to her eyes Karrde's steadily growing apprehension was as obvious as a navigational beacon.

  And the upcoming stopover at Pembric 2 was only the first leg of their trip. What would he be like, she wondered uneasily, by the time they actually reached Exocron?

  There was a particularly bright flash outside as a particularly large asteroid was blown to dust.

  "Oh, my," a gloomy, metallic voice murmured from Shada's right. She turned to look at the C-3PO protocol droid strapped i
nto the seat next to her. He was staring at the viewport, wincing with every turbolaser blast. "Trouble?" she asked.

  "I'm sorry, Mistress Shada," he said, managing to sound prim and miserable at the same time.

  "I've never entirely enjoyed space travel. And this in particular reminds me of a rather unpleasant incident in the past."

  "It should be over soon," she soothed him. "Just try to relax." The Mistryl shadow guard had never used droids all that much, but one of Shada's uncles had had one when she was growing up and she'd always had something of a soft spot for them.

  And in Threepio's case, she felt a particularly personal sympathy for his position. Leia Organa Solo's personal translator droid, he had been suddenly and summarily offered to Karrde for this voyage—no notice, no questions, no apologies. In many ways, it echoed Shada's own long and unquestioning service to the Mistryl.

  A service that had come to a sudden and permanent end a month ago on the windswept roof of the Resinem Entertainment Complex, where Shada had dared to put her personal honor above direct orders from the Eleven, the rulers of her shattered world of Emberlene.

  Would the rest of the Mistryl be hunting her now? Her old friend Karoly D'ulin had hinted that that would be the case. But with the New Republic simmering toward self-destruction in a flurry of petty wars and revived grudges, surely the Mistryl had more important things to do than hunt down even a perceived traitor.

  On the other hand, if Karoly had reported Shada's reasons for her defiance—had repeated the words of scorn for leaders who had now forgotten the proud and honorable tradition the Mistryl had once held to—then the Eleven might indeed consider her worth the effort to track down. Of all motivations to action, she had long since learned that injured pride was one of the most powerful. And one of the most destructive, as well. To both the victim and the hunter. A motion caught her eye: Karrde half turning in his seat to look at her. "Enjoying the ride?" he asked.